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15 Feb ’12
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well a 1/3rd acre in PA was $40,000, we bought 6 acres for $12,900 in Maine, but we messed up, we thought we were getting a deal, after we moved here we realized how cheap land really was here, we could have paid much less. For example we paid around 18,000 for 30 acres 15 years later. That's one tip I can give you, don't go in with an out of stater idea of what cheap land is. I knew a guy who moved up hear from Florida, he bought a lake front home on a couple acres for $300,000. It was a nice place, I told him got screwed.
He was offended and said what do you mean, I would have paid over a million for this in Florida. You're not in Florida anymore I told him. After living here for a year he realized his mistake when he started seeing a ton of other lake front homes in the area selling for under $150,000.
Most land in PA would only perc for elevated sand mounds, Maine you could still dig an outhouse. We have sawmills all over the place, so we can buy rough cut lumber and materials pretty cheap.
Those are the biggest differences that stand out.
3 Feb ’15
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Wow sounds like a similar situation... From what I can tell, land in northern Idaho appears to be 2.5-4k per acre. I'll certainly keep your advice in mind, that is exactly the kind of info I'm looking for because that is exactly how I was approaching it.
Hopefully bad_astronaut will have some local advice..
From another angle, I am not sure how many acres I actually need. Of course I'd love to have 30+ acres, but do I really need more than 5-10? Also, how far out from a major city is desirable? I know it's different for everyone, but I was considering within a half hour of a 50k+ pop city, does this sound reasonable? Looking at realtor.com some properties obviously look nicer than others (Need to see in person of course) and so seem to carry a higher price tag per acre. When you looked at properties, were you looking for specific features and price, or just the cheapest property that would accommodate your needs?
We are planning to make a few trips to Idaho over the next few years to make sure we are comfortable with the area and the climate.
15 Feb ’12
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let me dig out some old pictures
15 Feb ’12
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we live in a town smaller than 5,000 people within a 30 minute drive from Bangor which has 30,000 people. Our property is just on the outskirts of town and is zoned business residential, we hope to get it rezoned as agriculture. We searched for a long time, but could never find the right property, we wanted something with a little bit of water, woods, fruit trees and a few other things.
We searched for several years until we realized what we needed we already had.
In 2007 we had bought a house next to our business so we could expand our parking lot and business.
It had a big backyard
9 acres in fact, mostly wooded and swamp. With a large open field
so we tore down the house
we did our expansion and in 2008 I said to my wife, you know, we already own 9 acres, we can make it into what we want, so we did.
First came the pad and retaining wall for the house
then the pond
2009 we built the house
and we have kept adding every year since then, here is a satellite picture of that flat field from a couple years ago
we basically turned it into what we wanted
So don't be afraid to look at marginal land that others think is worth nothing, you might get a great deal on it. That's what one of my idols Rob Roy did, he got a 20 acre discontinued gravel pit as settlement for a different real estate transaction. No one wanted it, it was a barren moonscape as he described it, horrible for building a traditional home on, but perfect for building a round earth sheltered cordwood home on. He and Jackie have built a great home and career over the last 30 years with that barren moonscape through books, lectures and workshops.
3 Feb ’15
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Awesome, thanks for taking to time to put that post together.
I was able to identify (Based on your shared info) another area that looks even better than the ones I was looking at in terms of land size/quality vs. price, but I will keep your suggestion in mind and not avoid properties that don't already look amazing.
I think my hang up is that I'm looking for partially treed and partially pasture so I can have resources and privacy, but also space for livestock. I suppose I could get a fully treed property and cut down half the trees, but I am unsure what it would take to then turn that space into pasture.
Edit: I found http://www.homestead.....ngLand.htm by searching google for "turn woods into pasture" which resulted in a lot of forum topics and articles.
Still, anyone with knowledge I would appreciate your insight.
15 Feb ’12
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this use to be all woods according to our dexter breeder
they just pastured the cows in the woods and they stripped all the under brush, saplings etc over time. Then they went in and logged out what was left. He feels cows are the best thing to clear land. Pigs do an awesome job as well, they will root and tear everything up.
3 Feb ’15
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Ahh, the Dexter was the breed I have been looking at. How do you like them?
I wonder if I can run sheep and pigs with the Dexters for this purpose or am I asking for trouble? I suppose this would mean a need for fencing through the woods as well.. And also a lot of supplemental feeding.
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